Tag: landscape

Utah Winter Roadtrip … plus Colorado and Wyoming

Utah is a wild west wonderland … and the perfect place for a winter roadtrip.

Right now my Insta and Facey feeds are full of deep, deep pow blanketing the Wasatch and Rocky Mountains … which got me harking back to just over a year ago when we were enjoying similar conditions on an epic snowboarding roadtrip through Utah and Colorado.

First stop after a delayed flight in early January 2020 was a night in magical Moab, and a quick tour of Arches National Park the next morning. I cannot recommend Moab and Arches National Park more highly – it was truly spectacular, made perhaps even more so by the layer of brilliant white contrasting the blood-orange rock and sand.

In Arches National Park you don’t even have to get out of your car to appreciate the natural beauty.
Park Avenue, Arches National Park.
Garden of Eden in the fog, Arches National Park.
The famous Delicate Arch without the usual tourist crowds.

After snowboarding at Telluride and Crested Butte (both deep in the Colorado remote mountains) we made our way back to Salt Lake City and Park City.

Welcome to Utah!
Wintry wasteland high atop the Colorado Plateau, Utah-Colorado border.
Does is get any more wild west-looking than this?
Surreal scenery just off Interstate-70 at the Utah Welcome Center.
Big trucks, big mountains, big sky.
Speed-blur at 70+ miles an hour.
Golden hour out the passenger window.
Winter moon rising…

After getting our powder-fill in the Cottonwood Canyon resorts (Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude) as well as Park City, we headed north into the frozen white to see what Jackson Hole, Wyoming was like.

Little Cottonwood Canyon is a magnet for heavy snowfalls … and sketchy driving conditions.
How’s this for a Interstate-80 roadside panorama with the iPhone!
In winter it looks a lot like this on the five-hour drive north to Wyoming … but it’s worth the trip to get to ride Jackson Hole.
Fog and early-morning light combined for a bitingly cold vision across the elk reserve at Jackson, Wyoming.
This abandoned motel is not one of Jackson’s highlights, however. But I thought it looked pretty cool.
Last light, somewhere on the lonely road in Idaho.

Advertisement

Japan Travel Photos: Tokyo, Kyoto and Niseko

Radich_Tokyo_Shinjuku_1

Japan has got to be one of the best places to travel with a camera –  the hyper-industrialised cities, bright lights of the shopping districts, old temples and shrines, not to mention the epic snowscapes. Japan is full of epic visual scenes. And so it was a dream to finally be able to visit Japan this year … for snowboarding, and photography.

Along with what Apple likes to tell us is the “World’s most popular camera” in my pocket at all times, I travelled to Japan with my new Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, a pocket Canon Powershot AS3300 IS and a funny Russian panoramic 35mm film camera, a Horizon Perfekt. Have you had a look at the quick little blog posts of my iPhone photos from Tokyo and Kyoto? Well, here is a selection of my non-iPhone snaps.

I bought the old fashion, fully mechanical Horizon Perfekt from Lomography, and this trip in February was my first real chance to use it (besides one test role). The Perfekt uses a swing lens that moves left-to-right to project a 120-degree-wide image across almost two normal frames of 35mm film. As with any film, and particularly as I wanted to cross-process Fuji slide film, using the Perfekt was a little bit hit or miss – but that’s the fun of film! I took along a digital light meter to try and take some of the exposure setting guesswork out of it, and some of the results came out great.

As it’s taken me so long to post these extra non-iPhone photos, I think in future I’ll travel on non-photographic trips with just the little phone, and maybe a film camera for fun. I hope you enjoy these photos, as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Click on the photos to view them in a pop-up gallery…

Kinkakuji Temple, Kyoto
Wooden prayer wall at Fushimi Inari Temple, Kyoto.
Kyoto view from Kiyomizudera Temple.
Lanterns at a Kyoto temple.
A traditional restaurant facade in Kyoto.
The famous Zen rock garden at Ryonanji Temple, Kyoto.
The external corridor at Sanjusangendo Temple, Kyoto.
A couple of locals enjoy the Kyoto sunset dominated by Hokanji pagoda near the Gion district. (Yasaka no To Pagoda)
Flying into Sapporo.
Niseko trees during a blizzard.
Niseko trees during a blizzard.
Niseko forest at dusk.
Niseko whiteout.
Niseko forest during a blizzard.
Snowy Niseko streets
Snowfalling in Niseko.
A Niseko blizzard.
Downtown Tokyo.
Downtown Tokyo from the Metropolitan Government Building.
Akihabara street scape.
Akihabara street scape.
Inside a Manga shop in Akihabara.
Looking up in downtown Tokyo.
The guard towers along the moat at the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
A security guard (or cop) cycling round the Tokyo Imperial Palace gardens. They love their old school Euro-style uniforms in Japan.
A well-dressed local on his lunch break in the ruins of the tower at the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
Tokyo skyline from out front of the Train station.
Shibuya Crossing (from inside Starbucks).
Shibuya Crossing.
Shinjuku back streets.
Shinjuku streetscape.
Lanterns in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Tokyo subway
All asleep on the Tokyo subway.
Tokyo train.
End of the film… You’ve gotta love that authentic light burn. No Photoshop after-effect here.

To see more from Japan take a look at my iPhone shots from Kyoto and Tokyo.